


social potion

by revoleotion



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Based on my personal experience, Fluff, M/M, Stimming, autistic Thrawn, energy drinks, oh my god they were roommates, set in the academy days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25677331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revoleotion/pseuds/revoleotion
Summary: Eli watched the Chiss lean forward and reach for a can, take a sip and put it back. It took him a couple of seconds to understand, then he raised an eyebrow.“Is that energy drink?” he asked.____Or: Thrawn discovers energy drink and Eli has to deal with him.
Relationships: Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto
Comments: 5
Kudos: 78





	social potion

Finding him sitting in his bed with his boots on, reading something of no obvious significance that was going to save their asses sooner or later, wasn’t an usual sight. In fact, Eli was so used to it that when he stumbled into their room in the evening, he wasn’t surprised to see the very still, very focused silhouette on the bunk-bed. Nothing about this was unusual, except maybe the fact that Thrawn looked up when Eli walked in. 

“Good evening,” he said, quietly as per usual but with something to his voice that was new. He wasn’t as still as Eli had previously anticipated, his fingers were tracing patterns on his blanket, patterns that looked like the words he had just said. 

“Are you okay?” Eli asked. He kicked his boots from his feet, collected them and put them next to his desk. Unlike Thrawn’s desk, which managed to be packed with holoprojectors and coursework, Eli’s desk always looked like he never used it. He carried his datapad with him wherever he went and he used that for pretty much everything. 

“I am, thank you for asking,” Thrawn said. 

This was… odd, to say the least. It sounded a lot like Eli would talk, in a situation where he wasn’t fully comfortable but would force himself to be social. Thrawn did not have those reflexes. A lot of what he did was learnt, and even that was hard for him. 

Eli watched the Chiss lean forward and reach for a can, take a sip and put it back. It took him a couple of seconds to understand, then he raised an eyebrow. 

“Is that energy drink?” he asked. 

Thrawn leaned forward again to pick the can up and studied the label. 

“Do you want me to read the ingredients for you?” he asked. 

Eli frowned when he realized what confused him most about Thrawn’s voice. While he usually remained very calm and serious, his voice had more emotion to it now. Not that Eli could tell which emotions but they were there. He had never liked the very harmful stereotype of comparing Thrawn to a droid. He wasn’t one. No matter how he thought, how he processed things and how he spoke. 

“No,” Eli said when he realized he hadn’t given an answer yet. Thrawn kept up eye contact for a few seconds longer, took another sip of his drink and put it back. 

This settled it. Thrawn did not _do_ genuine eye contact. To be fair, Eli didn’t like it either, so a lot of what they did was just a lot of staring into the air while talking. If Thrawn had to look anyone in the eyes, Eli could tell that he was unfocusing and pulling back from reality a bit to cope with it. It was one of the few things he had observed right in the beginning and he had never once spoken to the Chiss about this. 

“I- Are you sure you want to drink this in the evening?” Eli asked and crouched down to take off his socks. He had once been the kind of person to go to bed with socks and wake up without them. This had never been an issue at home, apart from him losing socks sometimes. Now, at the academy, with him taking the top bunk (because Thrawn went to bed later than he did, and Thrawn did not want to wake him up on accident when he finally lay down), the socks had become a problem. Eli hadn’t noticed it at first because Thrawn hadn’t mentioned it. But one afternoon Thrawn had sat down on his bottom bunk and routinely caught a sock falling from Eli’s mattress before it could land in his lap. He hadn’t even commented on it, he had simply taken it, had walked over to the laundry basket and had put it in there. Routinely. Way too routinely. 

Eli had watched from the desk, his face burning and his eyes glued to Thrawn’s movements. He had been too embarrassed to say anything, he really had wanted to apologize but as seconds passed and Thrawn went back to his reading, he felt more and more foolish speaking up. In the end, he had just waited until it was his bedtime, then he had climbed up the bunk-bed, without socks. 

“Is there anything wrong with me drinking this?” Thrawn asked. “I like the taste.”

Eli’s heart burned, just a little bit. It was so hard to hate him, even worse than loving him. He sat down at his desk, legs crossed, and smiled at his roommate. 

“It’s just… if I drank this in the evening, the caffeine would prevent me from sleeping.”

“And judging from your own experience, you assumed that I would share that reaction,” Thrawn said softly. 

Eli felt his cheeks heat up. 

“I apologize,” he said. “I didn't want to offend you. It’s just a general rule not to drink those before you go to bed.”

“I don’t intend to go to sleep yet,” Thrawn replied. When he reached for the can again, he emptied it and lowered it to read the label again. Eli watched him, not sure what to make out of the feeling in his chest. Affection, tied to all the nervousness and dislike he felt around Thrawn. He was never sure what to make out of him. Even now, with his brain clearly being affected by the caffeine rush, just in a way Eli still had to understand. Whatever Thrawn had done to him and his career, Eli couldn’t hate him. Not if he was sitting on his bed with his damn boots on, studying the can of energy drink with mild interest like he hadn’t just put socially acceptable poison into his body. 

“How are you?” Thrawn suddenly added. 

“Why do you ask?” Eli asked. Thrawn rarely asked that. He lacked the natural instinct to do so. But Eli could be sure that he cared for him, just not in a way that required the _social aspect_. 

“You asked me earlier,” Thrawn offered which wasn’t useful at all. 

“I’m good,” Eli said. 

“That is good to hear.”

It sounded automatic, like Thrawn was reading a script. Something told Eli he hadn’t been researching art or republic droids until he had come in. No, Thrawn had probably done research for the one thing Eli beat him at. Being social. And it was a mess, not the kind of mess Eli wanted to laugh about. It felt bad to laugh about this. 

“So, is this your social potion?” he asked and pointed at the empty can. 

Thrawn considered this for a while. 

“Please don’t answer,” Eli added before the Chiss could open his mouth. “I’m joking.”

“What does potion mean?” Thrawn asked. 

“It’s… like a magic drink to cure your injuries or to give you powers.” This was embarrassing. He had never enjoyed this kind of books but he had enough surface knowledge to carry a conversation for long enough until he could change the topic. With Thrawn, things were different. Thrawn always wanted him to do more, to know more. Eli rarely felt good enough but when Thrawn praised him, he could feel his heart beating like it wanted to escape his chest. 

“So, I take it this joke implies that drinking this gives me the power to be social?” 

“Well, it’s not--” Eli took a deep breath. “It might give some people the energy to be social. People who usually lack the energy to do this. But in your case…”

“I understand,” Thrawn said softly. Eli wasn’t sure if he wanted to put him out of his misery or if he understood what Eli was trying to say. To be fair, Eli wasn’t sure where to go with his argument either. 

“I like the title,” his roommate declared after a few awkward seconds. “I will use it from now on. Unless there is another insensitive meaning to it that I don’t know about?”

“No. No, it just might sound… It’s something you use with your friends. Please don’t go to our superiors and say this. Don’t mention that drink, it’s considered immature.”

“It says on the label that children shouldn’t--”

“Yes, but just don’t mention it. Please.”

Thrawn looked at him again like he was attempting to read him. Eli should be used to this but it felt like he was tearing apart his skin to look at his insides. 

“You seem tired. I can turn the lights off if you want to sleep,” Thrawn said. Eli wondered if those were thoughts he always had, things he had observed about others that kept to himself. Thrawn knew a lot about him, just from judging his movements and voice. For someone who could not read a room, Thrawn could read people surprisingly well. Including Eli. 

He nodded and reached for his pajamas that he always kept in his bed, right at the corner so he could reach it from the ground. Thrawn looked back at the datapad while Eli changed. They had talked about it once, when Thrawn had taken off his shirt and Eli had asked if he was comfortable changing in front of him. They had come to the agreement that neither of them truly cared - but in reality, Eli had started wondering if Thrawn could like what he saw, just in case he ever looked up. And he had started looking at Thrawn’s back while he changed, and wondered how his skin would feel like underneath Eli’s fingertips. He imagined it to be cold, a pleasant, cool texture. 

Once Eli was done getting ready, he climbed up into his bed and lay down on his stomach. He was tired, Thrawn had been right, but he was also curious how the energy drink situation was going to turn out. He could still hear the quiet noise Thrawn’s tracing fingers made on his bedsheets. It was a nice sound to fall asleep to, he decided. 

“What did you read about earlier?” Eli asked. 

“Sharks.”

Eli sat up in his bed, almost hit his head and decided that his previous position was better. He couldn’t see Thrawn’s expression but he wasn’t sure if that could’ve helped him. His tone was interesting, full of genuine excitement. 

“Sharks,” he repeated. 

“Yes.”

“No battle tactics?” Eli asked. Not to tease him. He just had no other outlet for his confusion. 

“Not explicitly. Although I will be able to base a tactic on how this kind of shark behaves. Just like art, studying animals, especially animals close to your enemy’s culture can be beneficial in war--” Thrawn started. 

“That’s clever,” Eli blurted out. 

“Thank you.”

A pause. 

“Would you want me to continue?” Thrawn asked. It sounded more like he was asking for permission to talk. 

Social potion, indeed. 

“Please do so,” Eli said honestly. He could feel the smile on his face and hear it in his voice. He was looking forward to this. And he was willing to sacrifice a night for this, no matter how tired he was or many classes he had the next day. Right now, nothing mattered to Thrawn apart from those sharks. It felt good to join him for a bit, to feel his excitement and to watch his voice jump around between enthusiasm and the tone he used when he explained things to Eli. 

Eli turned onto his back, stared at the ceiling and let Thrawn’s voice sink in. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly not sure how universal my experiences are but that's my take on this energy drink headcanon. I hope you enjoyed reading, you can yell at me on Twitter (@enby_eli) or Instagram (@armitagescat) about this!  
> On a side note, additionally to my, well, name ben, I will now go by Eli as well. It makes me very happy and I'd be amazed if you could use that name! Thank you!


End file.
